Rioux - Cold Sweat / Fluid Being

Released - 03.25.16

Shapeshifting between minimal and maximal forms, tension and release, "Cold Sweat" & "Fluid Being” transpose techno logic to classical instrumentation and disembodied vocals. Through the friction of myriad contrasting movements within each piece, Rioux explores the binaries of his own masculinity and femininity.

"I believe all human beings are comprised of masculine and feminine tendencies. I enjoy the push and the pull of each. I perceive music, just like I perceive life, in these terms."

Echoes of Arthur Russell’s Dinosaur L and Detroit House can be traced in the mesh of musical trapdoors. Swerving around convention and towards the unexpected, Rioux thoughtfully orchestrates a dancefloor experience that keeps its audience on the tips of its toes. Not a second is left wanting color or detail.

A Detroit-area native, Rioux is set to release his debut solo LP Fall 2016 via his label and New York event series, Human Pitch.

Rioux - Prime Matter

Rioux's first offering of 2016 comes in the form of "Prime Matter," a haunting house track with a blooming bass-line, steel drums, and vocals filled with mystique.

"Prime matter is the state of energy in its raw, potential form. With these sounds I imagine being on the cusp of a great transformation (and the test that comes with it.)" says Rioux.

"Prime Matter" follows a prolific 2015 in which the young Detroit native released the labyrinthine ambient-house track "Evolver (Return)," followed by it's shape-shifting collage video. Earlier in 2015, Rioux shared the genre-bending EP, Evolver, which included its own interactive virtual environment, designed in collaboration with Vinyl Williams.

This past summer marked the 1-year anniversary of Rioux's collaborative LP with Astrophysicist Stephon Alexander and No Wave pioneer Arto Lindsay, Here Comes Now. Rioux looks forward to a productive 2016 overseeing Human Pitch, with a diversity of new productions laying in wait.

Headaches - Aluphor

Release - 11.06.15

Patience is an art not easily mastered, nor frequently highlighted in the hyper-sensory environment that is 2015. Perhaps for this reason we are most moved when an artist hypnotizes with calm reserve rather than embellishment and force. Headaches is the musical project of Canadian-born Landon Speers, an interdisciplinary artist whose experiments in sound serve as his most meditative and therapeutic form of expression. As Headaches, Speers has released a string of dance singles and honed a precise, deliberate sensibility as a DJ on tour with the likes of Purity Ring. However, with Aluphor, Headaches reveals his talents as an ambient composer, sharing his most coherent and self-realized body of work to date on digital, audiovisual, and cassette platforms.

The raw sonic materials (primarily synth and cello) are cast into sheets of sound, laying the foundation for a landscape equally natural and surreal. From a rhythmic perspective, much of Aluphor unfolds in “open” meter, pulsing intuitively rather, like a living organism. Movements II, III, and VI, however are more fixed in meter, implied by phasing pulses pioneered by Steve Reich.

Standing as one distinctly unified whole, Aluphor is a monolith in sonic form. Its glacial exterior disguises a warm, glowing core. Here, at the center, a swarm of feelings circulate the subconscious, funneling upwards towards clarity. Oscillating between moments of strength and gentle tranquility, the album is a balanced offering of “functional music” for ambient, as well as a immersive applications for those seeking the kind of transcendent experience summoned by Aluphor.

Rioux - Evolver (Return)

Released - 10.30.15

After releasing the genre-bending virtual EP, Evolver, earlier this May, experimental producer Rioux is back with "Evolver (Return)." Demonstrating his range as an interdisciplinary artist, the ambient house track is paired with a self-produced video, offering a hyper-sensory collage of the human experience.

"Evolver (Return)" showcases the Detroit native's dance-oriented side, eschewing his usual pop form for a shape-shifting audiovisual labyrinth. Constructed from sounds heard on his most recent EP, "Evolver (Return)" is a song within songs, highlighting the producer's emphasis on process.

"I'm very interested in the infinite iterations of a sound, idea, or life itself. By repeatedly recycling a creation, we are left with new, resonant permutations – like a musical Darwinism of sorts."

This summer marked the 1-year anniversary of Rioux's collaborative LP with Astrophysicist Stephon Alexander and No Wave pioneer Arto Lindsay, Here Comes Now. Rioux looks forward to a productive Fall overseeing Human Pitch, with a diversity of new productions laying in wait.

Dadras - 'Rubaiyat II'

Released - 10.09.15

Stealthily creeping around the limelight, native New Yorker Dadras has contributed to a range of creative spheres this year, from New York Fashion Week showcases to co-writing A$AP Rocky's, “Dreams” - not to mention his brilliant solo debut, Rubaiyat I. Now, Dadras is set to release his forthcoming Rubaiyat II on October 9th via Human Pitch.

Rubaiyat II is the warm and vibrant follow-up to it’s dark, mutated counterpart Rubaiyat I. Throughout the album Dadras illuminates a mind-altering cross-section of experimental house and hip-hop sound collage. Bubbling with cryptic found sounds, whirring percussion, and dubbed-out low-end, Dadras’ most lush productions to date evoke a mysterious tropical escape–an island utopia floating in a sea of darkness. Murky waters are explored on the cavernous “Ghost Ship”, but Dadras opts mainly to blast his listeners with heavy doses of concentrated sun, from the scorched “Earth Don’t Stop Here”, to the golden haze of “Hollywood” and “Kept On Living”.

What distinguishes Dadras from even the most imaginative beatmakers (as evidenced further in his live performances) is his virtuosity as a drummer. Live machine-gun snares and serpentine cymbals can be heard on “Whirlpool”, “Surf Rat”, and “Ouroboro”, merging with their programmed percussive counterparts. Splashes of minimalist vocals on “Hollywood” and the droning dancefloor epic, “Faust”, expand on this human touch, giving the album an intimate, naturalistic feel and placing right at home in the sonic sphere of label head Rioux, who contributed guitars and mastered the record.

2015 will mark the first year we glimpsed the rise of the multi-faceted talent that is Alex Dadras. Unconfined by genre, Dadras operates in uninhibited, prolific fashion: it is a rare creative force that puts forth two full-length albums in his first year on the scene. If Rubaiyat I wasn’t enough, pt. II solidifies the case that Dadras is someone to whom our eyes and ears should be fixed for a long time to come.

Currently residing in Brooklyn, NY by way of Toronto, Speers creates atmospheric beat music utilizing droning textures and blooming bass. Speers shares a similar outlook on his photography as he does his music- exploring themes of repetition and atmosphere that evoke an intimate sense of time and place. Speers has toured internationally as a DJ (opening for the likes of Purity Ring) and recently played at Human Pitch’s showcase at the Silent Barn, alongside Co La, Time Wharp, Gobby, and Human Pitch co-founder Rioux.

DADRAS – Earth Don't Stop Here

Released - 09.02.15

Stealthily creeping around the limelight, native New Yorker Dadras has contributed to a range of cultural spheres this year, from New York Fashion Week showcases with Rochambeau to co-writing A$AP Rocky's, “Dreams” - not to mention his brilliant solo debut, Rubaiyat I. Now Dadras announces his forthcoming Rubaiyat II, with lead single, "Earth Don't Stop Here".

A propulsive, undulating, tropical, strut, this house-leaning track shows the experimental producer veering more towards the dancefloor than the shadowy, cerebral corridors of his previous work. Announcing itself with a cryptic eighth-note vocal stutter, the song draws us in with gaps of silence, giving way to an infectious triplet tom pattern. Dadras ramps up our anticipation with the snaking environmental texture of warping wood, warning the sonic structure might snap at any moment. Teasing the drop with a series of filter sweeps, Dadras delivers the kick drum no sooner than halfway through the song's ascent through spring reverbs and harmonic tremors. After receding into the lower frequencies the groove reemerges for the track's last stand with a robust, ominous bass-line cadence as we watch the sun fade into the horizon.

Rioux – 'Evolver'

Released - 05.04.15

Electronic psychedelic musician Rioux released his newest genre-bending work, Evolver, on May 4th via his Connect label. The 5-track record, made between Detroit and New York, is a life cycle in miniature, exploring metamorphosis and the various states of being in the evolving human experience. The EP showcases Rioux as an artist-producer hybrid; translucent vocals and oblique song structures materialize over hyper-detailed rhythmic patchworks and otherworldly sound palettes.

DADRAS – 'RUBAIYAT I'

Released - 03.30.15

Native New Yorker DADRAS stealthily creeps around the local electronic music scene in a shadowy mystique. If you’re lucky enough to catch one of his sets, you can expect a mind-melting barrage of machine gun kicks, live percussion, and minimalist vocals, drowned in a thick molasses low-end. RUBAIYAT I , DADRAS’s debut release on Rioux’s Connect label, expands on this signature hybrid: a mutated and demented brew of electronic and hip hop music with washes of shoegaze textures. Sonic purity is eschewed for a raw, visceral production aesthetic, in which disorder is embraced; vocal drones are used to create a foundation for DADRAS’s minimal yet playful melodies. Atonality and whirring found noises screech atop DADRAS’s heavy poly-rhythmic drum structures, striking a balance between the extremes of chaos and structure, beauty and dissonance.

Rioux & Stephon Alexander – 'Here Comes Now'

On August 4th, Trinidadian-American astrophysicist & saxophonist Stephon Alexander and Brooklyn electronic artist/producer Rioux are set to release their collaborative album 'Here Comes Now' on Rioux’s label imprint Connect.

During his sabbatical from Dartmouth College, Stephon Alexander spent the summer of 2012 in Brooklyn, NY where he met Rioux for the first time at a local cafe. After an engaging conversation about the relationship between music and astrophysics, the two made music that same day at Rioux’s studio. The outcome was a psychedelic afro-caribbean dance track with a spoken-word account of the creation of the universe. The song and the album it would inspire explore space, time, our place in the cosmos, and the overlooked connection between modern music and science.

Part Sun Ra, part Brian Eno, Here Comes Now employs an array of collaborators from No Wave/Bossa Nova legend Arto Lindsay, and art director Diego Cortez (Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat). The ornate, tailored productions by Rioux—a multi-instrumentalist—frame Alexander’s cerebral dub-reggae vocals and free bop saxophone performances. Through the album’s sonic narrative, Alexander and Rioux take us on a trip through the human experience and the greatest curiosities of the universe, while pushing the boundaries of contemporary music.

Rioux – System Preferences

Released - 04.21.14

Rioux began 2014 with a string of monthly singles premiering on XLR8R. The shadowy, surreal “Trails,” the transcendent “Maze1,” the sinister "Lucifer," and the electrifying "Tree Torrent" all draw from David Lynch films, exploring the space between darkness and light. The four tracks culminated in the mini-epic EP ‘System Preferences.'

Headaches – Stagest

Released - 03.31.14

Brooklyn ambient-bass producer Headaches (Landon Speers) debut release on Human Pitch, “Stagest,” is a slowly evolving track that is equal parts playful and brooding. The track’s soulful vocal samples imply a sense of longing as the propulsive and jumpy drum machine pattern pushes the song through the haze of tubular bells and reverb.

Kazimier – '?'

Released - 11.12.13

Kazimier is the project of electronic innovator and New York contemporary musician, Bill DeLelles. As a member of Chrome Sparks with a background in classical percussion, DeLelles infuses his orchestral chops with low-end and analog funk to create the cosmic futurism of Kazimier.

Following the release of his debut single, “Toe Cup”, and a performance at Glasslands earlier this month, ? marks Kazimier’s first EP for Rioux’s label, Human Pitch. The EP is also available as a limited edition cassette via Graveyard Orbit.